Groundskeeping

Settings

I am

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PlanFree, Pro, or Campus

Plans are per site, billed monthly, cancel any time. A new site starts with a 30-day Campus trial. Prices are in US dollars.

SiteName, picture, working area, zones, other sites

Site

Site name

Zone pages open at

Zone zoom:

100% shows a tree marker's date at about 12 px. Higher zooms in closer for everyone; lower shows more of the zone. Applies on every phone the next time a zone is opened.

Working area

Grow the map beyond the picture's edges when work reaches further (snow clearing, a new field). The picture stays where it is and the live map fills the rest; phones on the pictures see a plain background there. Then add or stretch zones with Add zone and Edit zones.

Zones

Rename, tint, give a zone its own picture, or delete an empty one. Shape outlines with Edit zones on the home map.

A new site starts with no pictures: the live map is its home map and its zone pages. Open any site with ?site=id at the end of the address.

Crew and accessJoin code, crew list, assignments, manager PIN

Site access

Only phones that have joined with the code can read or change this site. Send the join link to each crew phone once; opening it joins. A new code does not remove phones that already joined.

Notifications

Daily summary time

Each rule says who hears about what: completions, problems reported, problems fixed; for the whole site, chosen zones or tasks, or only the work assigned to that person; right away or in a daily summary. People get push on phones where they tapped Notify me, and email if they entered one. Needs the notification function (SETUP.md).

Crew members

Add a name

Assignments

Choose who takes care of each kind of area. A small circle with their initials appears on the edge of every matching area. Each crew member's circle color is set in the Crew members list above.

Manager PIN

Tasks and seasonsDays a mark lasts, leaf and snow seasons

How many days a mark lasts

Trees

Bushes

Lawn

Leaves

Snow

Trash

1 means the crew marks it every day. The mark clears itself when the days are up.

Leaf season: show Leaves to the crew Snow season: show Snow to the crew

DrawingEdit tools, mower areas, zone outlines, home positions, colors

Trees, beds, and areas

Open a zone, then tap "Edit this zone" to add, move, or remove trees, bush beds, lawn areas, leaf areas, and snow areas.

Mower areas

Purple is the Rider, blue the 48, red the 12. Draw, move, reshape, or delete them on the home map.

Copying turns each mower area into a lawn area with a white dotted outline that the crew taps when it is mowed. Areas already copied are skipped, so it is safe to run again after adding new ones.

Zone outlines

Go to the home map, then reshape or move any of the 10 zones.

Trees and areas on the home map

If finished trees or areas do not line up with the home map, first try Set home position for that zone. Then drag two or three well-spread trees or areas into place here; the rest of the zone learns from them and follows.

Colors

Pick any color for outlines, done marks, mower areas, problem pins, and the zone tints. Everyone sees the same colors.

Live mapSwitches for this phone, tile source, Google key, georeference

Live map (whole site)

Pick where satellite tiles come from. Esri and USGS need no account. Custom takes any {z}/{x}/{y} tile address, for example from Mapbox, Google Map Tiles, or a state imagery service such as Utah's UGRC. The home map must be georeferenced first.

Tile source

Closest zoom the tiles support

Turn the live map on for every phone by default

Google Maps Platform API key (optional)

With a key saved, Google Map Tiles can be the site source above, or a phone can turn on Prefer Google under This phone above to use Google's sharper imagery (zoom 22) while the crew stays on the free source. Enable the Map Tiles API on the key's project and restrict the key to this site's web address. The app starts and renews the Google session itself; tiles are billed per tile on that Google account.

Downloads every tile that covers the home map so this phone can show the live map without a connection. Do this once on Wi-Fi.

Georeference (latitude and longitude)

Teach the app where the home map sits in the real world. Go to the home map, tap a spot you can find on Google Maps, and paste its coordinates. Three or four spots spread across the map are enough. This prepares the live map layer and does not change anything the crew sees.

ProgressThe manager version with names

Dashboard (manager version)

The Progress panel with names: who last marked each item on the Waiting longest list, who reported each problem, and the not-assigned count. For one-on-ones. Progress in the rail is the crew version without names.

SurveysAsk the crew a question, see the answers, find patterns

Campaigns

A campaign is one question (stars, a written answer, or both) with a rule for when it appears. It pops up in the app for the people you choose, once each unless you set a repeat. Tap a campaign to see its results.

Never ask anyone more often than every

HistoryRecent completions

History

DataExport, import, delete, reset

Data

Help

Search help

Groundskeeping keeps track of grounds work on a map. Everyone on the crew sees the same map on their own phone; the name at the top of Settings says which site this phone is on.

For everyone

Getting aroundThe left bar, clearing the screen, Settings, Help, offline

Finding things in Help

Type a word in the search box at the top of this panel and only the sections that mention it stay, with the word highlighted. Clear the box to see everything again.

The left bar

Help is arranged in drawers: For everyone first, then For the manager. Tap a drawer to open it; each phone remembers which you left open. Searching opens the drawers with matches and hides the rest until you clear the search. Everything you need is in the bar on the left. The button with the solid dark background is where you are. The task filter that is applied also has a thin ring around its icon, and keeps it wherever you go (Zones, inside a zone), so you can tell at a glance which task is on even when nothing on the map matches it yet. You can show several tasks at once: on a computer, shift-click (or ctrl / cmd-click) each task you want; on a phone, press and hold a task to add it or remove it. Every task that is showing has a ring, the heading lists them ("Bushes + Lawn"), and a plain tap on a task goes back to that task alone; for Lawn the ring takes the color of the view you picked in its list (purple for Rider, blue for 48, red for 12, orange for Done, dark for All). The word at the very top tells you where you are: the task you are looking at (All, Trees, Bushes, Lawn, Leaves, Snow, or Trash), Zones when the zone list is open, or the zone name when you are inside a zone.

Zone pages open at the same real-world scale in every zone (a tree marker's date reads at about 12 px), centered on the zone, so a marker looks the same size wherever you are; the manager sets how close under Site > Zone zoom (100% is the readable default; higher is closer) or can switch to "whole zone on screen". Any marker whose date and initials are still too small to read grows to a readable size while you hover over it with a mouse or hold a finger on it; lift, and it shrinks back. Home shows the whole area as a clean map with no markers on it, from anywhere in the app. All shows every task's markers together; Trees, Bushes, Lawn, Leaves, Snow, and Trash show one task at a time. On the home map, finished work is tinted a different orange per task so the marks stay telling apart: snow the palest tint, trees light peach, leaf areas a warm apricot, lawns the classic orange, bushes a deep vivid orange, trash a red-orange; the manager can change these under Drawing > Colors. Zones opens the list of zones. Instructions shows notes from the manager. Settings and Help open their panels.

Clearing everything out of the way

Tap any empty spot on the map and the left bar and the zoom buttons slide off the screen so you can see the whole map. Tap the map again and they slide back. Pinching, dragging, marking work, and reporting problems all keep working while they are hidden.

Settings

Tap Settings in the left bar to pick your name from the crew list, so marks show who did the work. You can also turn the dotted outlines of unmarked trees and areas on or off. Outlines are colored by kind: trees white, bush beds amber, lawn green, leaves orange, snow light blue.

Working offline

The app works without a signal. Anything you mark is saved on your phone and shared with the rest of the crew as soon as you are back online.

The mapsHome map, zone list, zone maps, the live map

The home map

The first screen is a satellite view of the whole area. Tap Zones to outline the 10 zones and open the zone list. Tap a zone on the map, or its name in the list, to open it. Orange dots and orange shapes show work that has been completed recently: a dot for a tree, and the outline of the bed or area itself.

The zone list

The zone list slides out next to the left bar with Zone 1 through Zone 10. On a phone it closes by itself as soon as you pick a zone, to give the map more room; on a tablet or computer it stays open while you jump between zones. To tuck it away yourself, tap any empty space in the list, or tap Zones again. Tap Zones whenever you want it back.

Zone maps

Each zone is a zoomed-in map. Trees, bush beds, lawn areas, leaf areas, and snow areas are drawn on it. Pinch to zoom (or pinch on a laptop trackpad, or hold Ctrl and scroll), or use the + and - buttons on the right. Drag to move around; the map slides under the left bar and the buttons.

The live map

If the manager has set up a tile source and georeferenced the home map, the live map can be turned on per phone (manager: Settings > Manager settings > Live map > This phone) or for every phone at once (Turn the live map on for every phone by default). There are two switches, one for the home map and one for zone pages. With them on, the maps draw over up-to-date satellite tiles that stay sharp however far you zoom, and everything else works the same: tap a zone to open it, tap a tree or area to mark it, dots and shapes show what is done, red pins show problems. A live zone page is a window on the same map as the home map, cropped to the zone, so every tree, area, mower area, and pin sits exactly where it is on the home map; Zone 8 becomes one continuous map instead of five strips. The Satellite picture on top slider fades the site's own picture in over the tiles, which is handy for checking how well they line up. The first time, the tiles need a connection; every tile you have looked at is kept on the phone for when you are offline, and the manager can save the whole map in one go. If the tiles cannot load, the app quietly falls back to the pictures.

Doing the workMarking done, tasks, mowers, your work, problems, instructions

Marking work as done

Tap a tree or area when you finish it. It fills in with today's date and your initials. Tap it again to clear the mark if you tapped by mistake.

Marks clear themselves after a set number of days (the manager chooses how many for each task), so an empty outline means it is time to do that work again.

All, Trees, Bushes, Lawn, Leaves, Snow, and Trash

All is what you see when you first open the app, and shows every task together, overlaps included; finished lawn areas are tinted green, leaf areas tan, and snow areas blue so you can tell them apart. Each task also has its own layer so shapes never get in each other's way: Trees shows only the tree dots, Bushes only the bush beds, Lawn the areas to mow, Leaves the leaf pickup areas, Snow the snow removal areas, and Trash the trash cans (round markers) and trash pickup areas. Tapping, marking, editing, assignments, and Progress work the same on every layer, and each has its own number of days a mark lasts. The manager can turn Leaves and Snow on for their seasons and off for the rest of the year.

Lawn: which mower goes where

Tap Lawn and a second list slides out: All, Done, Rider, 48, and 12. Purple areas are for the Rider, blue for the 48-inch mower, and red for the 12-inch mower. All shows every mower's areas together with the orange marks for lawns already mowed. Done shows only the orange marks. Rider, 48, or 12 shows just that mower's areas, with the orange marks on top so you can see what is left. The colors also show on the zoomed-in zone maps. On a phone the list closes after you pick; tap Lawn again to bring it back.

Your work for the day

Tap Instructions in the left bar. The top section, Your work, lists everything assigned to you: the kinds of area you cover in general (for example, all lawn areas) and any specific trees or areas the manager gave you, grouped by zone, with how many are still to do and how many are done. Tap Go to jump straight to that zone (or to the mower areas on the home map). The red dot on Instructions lights up when your assignments change, not just for new notes. Turn on Show only my work on the map and everything that is not yours fades back, so the map becomes your to-do list; turn it off to see everything again. This switch is just for your phone.

Reporting a problem

See a broken sprinkler, a fallen limb, or anything that needs attention? Press and hold on the map right where the problem is. A form opens where you can add photos (up to six) and a short note. A red pin then shows on the map for everyone. Tap a pin to see the photos and the note, add more photos, or edit the note. Tap Close or anywhere outside the box to put it away. When it is taken care of, tap Mark as fixed.

Instructions

Instructions in the left bar shows notes from the manager. A red dot on the button means there are new instructions for you; it goes away once you open the panel. Instructions can be for the whole crew or just for you.

Progress, notifications, surveysWhat Progress shows, what you get told about, survey questions

Progress

Progress, under Home in the left rail, is a side panel that sums up the whole site for everyone on the crew. The tiles at the top count what is to do, what is due within a day, what is done, and open problems. By task shows the same for Trees, Bushes, Lawn, Leaves, Snow, and Trash with a progress bar; Go switches the map to that task. By zone lists every zone with its to-do and done counts, how many things have never been marked, the longest anything there has waited, and its open problems; tap a zone to open it. Waiting longest lists the trees and areas that have gone the longest since they were last marked done, overdue ones first. Open problems lists every unfixed report; Go jumps to its pin. Leaves and Snow only count while their season switch is on. This crew version shows no names.

Notifications

The manager, or anyone the manager chooses, can be told when work is marked done, when a problem is reported, or when one is fixed, by push notification on their phone, by email, or both. Each person sets up their own channels under Settings > My notifications: Notify me on this phone asks for permission and registers that phone (do this on the phone you carry; on an iPhone the app must be installed to the home screen first), and My email takes the address to send to. What each person hears about is a rule the manager writes under Crew and access > Notifications: who, which events, the whole site or only certain zones or tasks or only the work assigned to that person, and whether it arrives right away or as one daily summary at the chosen time. Delegating is just a rule: give Marc Zone 4 in Assignments, then add "Marc, work marked done, only his assignments, daily summary." Nobody is told about their own actions right away. Two more events can go in a rule: Survey answers (each answer as it comes in, with the stars and the text) and Work coming due, which lists in the daily summary what became due again that day because its mark ran out, so a person knows what is waiting. Some notices need no rule because they are personal: when the manager assigns someone a category, a zone, or particular markers, that person is told right away; when instructions are posted, the people they are for (or everyone) are told; and when a survey is sent, its audience is told. Those go to whoever has push or email set up under My notifications. Sending needs the small notification function set up once per site (SETUP.md); until it is, the settings save but nothing is sent, and the status line says so.

Surveys

Now and then the app may ask you a short question from the manager: a star rating, a written answer, or both. It appears when you open the app or after you mark something done, never while you are drawing or in the middle of something else, and never more than once every few days. Send, Later (asks again in three days), or No thanks (that question will not come back). Your name goes with your answer so the manager can follow up.

For the manager

Manager settings and accessPIN, staying unlocked, the settings drawers, join codes, other sites

For the manager

Buttons and fields throughout the app follow Material Design: filled buttons are the main action, outlined ones are secondary, plain text buttons are minor actions, and fields show their name inside the box until you start typing.

Staying unlocked (manager)

When you enter the manager PIN, tick Keep me unlocked on this phone. After that the app opens already unlocked on that phone: the quick menu, the editors, the Crew overview, and Manager settings are ready as soon as it loads. Lock manager settings turns this off again, and changing the PIN locks every remembered phone. Only tick it on your own phone.

Manager settings are behind a PIN. There you can set how many days each kind of mark lasts (trees, bushes, lawn, leaves, snow, trash), turn leaf season and snow season on or off, add or remove crew members, change the PIN, see History (who did what and when), and Export or Import the trees and areas as a file.

Manager settings

Manager settings are grouped in drawers: Site, Crew and access, Tasks and seasons, Drawing, Live map, Progress, History, and Data. Tap a drawer's title to open or close it; each phone remembers which drawers you left open. The line under each title says what is inside. The Progress panel is arranged the same way: the count tiles stay at the top and By task, By zone, Waiting longest, and Open problems are drawers whose supporting line shows the current numbers.

Plans: Free, Pro, Campus

Groundskeeping is free for a small crew and paid per site beyond that. Free includes the map with the site's own pictures, marking work done, problems with photos, instructions, Your work, the crew Progress panel, mower areas, and offline use, for up to 5 crew members and 6 zones. Pro ($19 per site per month) removes those limits and adds the live map with any tile source and live zone pages, the working area, push and email notifications, the manager dashboard, History, and export. Campus ($49) adds surveys, whole-zone assignments, and running several sites. Every new site starts with a 30-day Campus trial with no card. Manager settings > Plan shows the site's plan and days left, lets the manager choose a plan (checkout is handled by Stripe; the app never sees card numbers), and manage or cancel a subscription. Tapping something the plan does not include explains what it needs. Some sites are complimentary: full access arranged with the author, shown as such in Plan.

Site access and join codes

Each site's shared data can only be read or changed by phones that have joined it. A phone joins once, with the site's join code: open the join link the manager sends (it contains the code), or enter the code when the app asks, or tap Join this site in Settings. After that the phone stays joined. The manager sees the code under Manager settings > Site access, can copy a join link to send to crew phones, and can make a new code at any time; phones that already joined stay joined, only new phones need the new code. When the access rules are first turned on for an existing site, the first manager-unlocked phone to open it sets the site's code automatically and shows it there. A new site created from the app gets its own code, shown when it is created.

Sites (manager)

The app can run more than one site (a campus, a park, a city's grounds) from the same install. Each site has its own name, home map, zones, trees and areas, crew, PIN, and settings, kept apart in the shared database and on the phone. Manager settings > Site shows the site this phone is on. Site name changes the heading everywhere. Use a picture points the home map at an overview picture in the img folder (it measures the picture for you; georeference it afterwards); Use the live map only makes the live map the home map instead, from a center and a width in meters. Zones lists every zone: rename it, change its tint, give it a zoomed-in picture (or none, in which case its page is the live map), or delete it once it is empty; Add zone creates a new one as a box in the middle of the home map, which you then shape with Edit zones. Switch site opens another site by id on this phone; New site creates one (id, name, center, width), with the manager PIN 1234, no pictures, and the same tile source as this site, so the first thing to do there is change the PIN and add zones. Any phone can open a site with ?site=id at the end of the address, and remembers it.

Drawing and editingTrees, areas, trash, points, sizes, selection, the quick menu, colors, starting over

Drawing trees and areas

Open a zone, then tap Edit this zone. Choose Tree, Bush bed, Lawn area, Leaf area, or Snow area. A tree is one tap. An area is drawn point by point. Snow areas work exactly like lawn and leaf areas: walks, steps, and lots the crew clears after a storm.

Trash (manager)

Trash has two kinds of marker: Trash can, a round marker you tap into place like a tree, and Trash area, an outline you draw around a spot that is not a single can (a corner that collects litter, a row of cans, a dumpster pad). Both live on the Trash layer, are marked done the same way, expire after the number of days set under Tasks and seasons (1 by default, every day), show in Progress, and can be assigned. To assign trash cans to a person, select the can(s) in Edit this zone and tap Assign, or set Trash cans under Assignments to give every can to someone. To assign a whole zone, press and hold the zone on the home map (or empty ground inside the zone) and choose Assign people to that zone; those people then own everything in the zone, on every task, and see it under Your work.

Fixing a tree or area that is already drawn

In Edit this zone, tap any tree or area to select it. A selected tree can be dragged to a new spot. A selected area shows point handles: drag the middle to move it, drag a point to reshape it, tap a small dot on an edge to add a point, or tap a point and Remove point. With an area selected, the Bush bed / Lawn / Leaf / Snow buttons change what kind of area it is. Delete removes the selected tree or area (and its marks) for everyone. Tap empty ground to deselect. Nothing is deleted by tapping a shape, so stray taps are safe.

Fixing a point while drawing

Put a point in the wrong spot? Tap Undo point in the bar to remove the last one (tap again to go back further), press Cmd+Z, Ctrl+Z, or Backspace on a computer, or press and hold the point and choose Remove this point; then keep drawing. Cancel shape throws the whole unfinished shape away. Once a shape is closed, select it and drag any point to fine-tune it.

Managers can also work on one point directly: right-click it (or press and hold on a phone). On a point of the shape you are drawing, the menu offers Remove this point, Make rounded or Make sharp, Close shape, and Cancel shape. On a point of a selected shape it offers Remove point and Make rounded or Make sharp; on a small edge dot it offers Add point here. This works in every editor: zone areas, mower areas, home-map adjustments, and zone outlines.

Sharp and rounded points

While drawing an area, a quick tap makes a sharp point. Press and hold for about half a second to make a rounded point: the outline curves smoothly through it instead of making a point. Mix both kinds in one shape. For a curved edge, use two or three rounded points spread along the curve. Tap the first point again to close the shape.

Marker size: Bigger and Smaller (manager)

Photos are not all the same scale, so a tree marker that looked right in one zone could look huge in another. New tree and trash-can markers are now sized in real meters when the map is georeferenced (a tree about 2.5 m across, a can about 1 m), so they match from zone to zone. To adjust any marker or area, select it in Edit this zone and tap Bigger or Smaller in the bar; each tap changes the size by about 15%, areas grow or shrink around their middle, and with several selected they all change together.

Selecting several at once (manager)

In Edit this zone you can work on many trees and areas together. On a computer, shift-click (or ctrl / cmd-click) each one to add it to the selection, or hold shift and drag a box around them. On a phone, tap Select more so every tap adds or removes, or tap Select area and drag a box; tap Select area again to stop. The title shows how many are selected. Drag any selected shape and they all move together; Delete, Bush bed / Lawn / Leaf / Snow, Rider / 48 / 12, and Assign apply to every one of them. Move to zone sends the selection (or one selected tree or area) to another zone: it keeps its marks and lands at the same spot on the home map, so this is how to fix something drawn in the wrong zone. Reshaping points is one shape at a time; select just one to see its handles. Clear selection or a tap on empty ground starts over.

Duplicating an area (manager)

To split a lawn between two mowers, or reuse a shape you have already traced, right-click or press and hold an area on a zone map, or a mower area on the home map, and choose Duplicate. A copy appears a little down and to the right, already selected in the editor, so you can drag its points into place. The copy starts with no mower, no assignees, and no link to any other shape: tap Rider, 48, or 12 to give it one. A duplicated mower area keeps the same mower until you change it.

The quick menu (manager)

Once Manager settings are unlocked, you can change most things right on the map without opening a panel. On a computer, right-click a tree, area, or mower area; on a phone, press and hold it. A menu opens with Assign people, the kind of area (Bush bed, Lawn, Leaf, Snow), the mower for a lawn (Rider, 48, 12), Copy to mower area or Copy to lawn, Duplicate, Move or reshape (which opens the editor with that shape selected), Report a problem here, and Delete. Right-click or press and hold on empty ground for Report a problem here and the editors. Tap anywhere else to close the menu.

Colors

Each kind of area has its own dotted outline so the crew can tell them apart at a glance. To start: trees white, bush beds amber, lawn areas green, leaf areas orange, snow areas light blue. If a color is hard to see against the map, the manager can change it in Settings > Colors: tap a swatch to open the phone's color picker. You can recolor the outlines, the done marks, the three mower areas (the dots in the Lawn list follow), the problem pins, and each of the 10 zone tints. Colors are shared, so every phone shows the same ones. Reset to defaults puts the original colors back.

If the drawing toolbar is in the way, tap the small arrow on it to fold it down to a thin strip; tap the strip to open it again.

Starting over (manager)

Manager settings > Data has two ways to clear the drawing for every zone at once: Delete all areas removes every bush bed, lawn, leaf, and snow area in every zone but keeps the trees; Delete all areas and trees removes everything. Delete all mower areas clears the mower map (lawn areas made from mower areas stay, without the link). All of them act on every phone, take the marks with them, and ask you to type DELETE. Zone outlines, home positions, and the georeference are not touched. Export first if there is any chance you will want the old shapes back; Import brings them back. To clear one zone only, open it, Edit this zone, Select area around everything, Delete.

Zones and the home mapOutlines, lining up zones, live zone pages, the working area

Changing the zone outlines

Edit zones in Manager settings lets you reshape or move any of the 10 zones on the home map. Tap a zone to select it, then drag points, drag the middle, add points on the edge dots, or remove a point. Rounded points show as open circles (white center, yellow ring) and sharp points as solid yellow, both while drawing and later when a shape is selected for editing, so you can see which is which. Tap a point and then Make rounded to curve the outline through it, or Make sharp to turn a corner there (the same choice is in the point's quick menu). Reset zone restores the original. A zone's outline only decides which zoomed-in map opens; if a zone needs to cover ground that is not in its picture, it needs a new satellite image.

Lining up a zone on the home map

Set home position: open a zone, then drag the ghost picture over the matching buildings on the home map and use Bigger and Smaller until it fits. Finished-work dots and shapes for that zone will follow it. Do this first; it fixes every area in the zone at once.

The home map learns from your adjustments

Each tree or area you move on the home map teaches the app how that zone's picture really lines up with the home map. After you fix one, everything else in that zone shifts to match. After two, the app also corrects the scale and any tilt. After three or more spread across the zone, it fits the whole zone as closely as it can. So pick a few landmarks spread across the zone (a tree in each point, say), drag those into place, and most of the rest will land close on their own. Anything still off can be fine-tuned individually.

Moving a single tree or area on the home map

If one tree, bed, or lawn still does not sit in the right place on the home map, use Adjust on home map in Manager settings. Every tree and area for the current task appears on the home map. Tap a tree dot and drag it to where the tree really is. Tap an area to select it, then drag the middle to move it, drag a point to reshape it, tap a small dot on an edge to add a point, or tap a point and Remove point. This only changes how it looks on the home map, not on the zone page. The new position is saved and shared with every phone. Reset area puts it back.

Drawing on a live zone page (manager)

Edit this zone works the same on a live zone page: add trees, draw areas, drag and reshape them, pick a mower. The difference is where the result is stored. Anything drawn, moved, or reshaped on a live page is saved as its exact position on the home map, so it lands there in exactly the right place, and it also becomes a control point that improves how that zone's picture lines up for phones still using the pictures. Trees and areas that were originally drawn on a picture appear on the live page where the picture fit puts them; if one is off, drag it into place once and it is exact from then on. The picture view keeps showing everything, positioned through the fit, so it will be close but not always perfect; the live view and the home map are always exact with each other. Problems reported on a live page are pinned by their exact position too.

Working area: extending the map (manager)

A site's working area starts as its home picture. When the work reaches beyond it, for example snow clearing on lots the picture does not cover, Manager settings > Site > Extend the working area grows the map: enter how many meters to add above, below, left, and right of the picture (the home map must be georeferenced first). Nothing already drawn moves. The picture stays where it is, the live map fills the new margin, and phones still on the pictures see a plain background there with the shapes drawn on it. Then Add zone and Edit zones to place zones in the new area, or drag an existing zone's points outward; zones out there are live zone pages. Back to the picture shrinks the working area again without deleting anything (zones outside would simply be off screen until you extend again).

Mower areasMower map, lawns to mower areas and back, leaf areas

Changing the mower areas

With Lawn selected, Manager settings has Edit mower areas. On the home map, tap an area to select it, then drag the middle to move it, drag a point to reshape it, tap a small dot on an edge to add a point, or Remove point. To add a new area, tap Rider, 48, or 12 in the toolbar, tap its points on the map, and tap the first point again to close it. Delete area removes the selected one. Changes are shared with every phone.

Turning lawns into mower areas

If the lawns are already drawn on the zone maps, you do not need to redraw them as mower areas. In Edit this zone, select a lawn area and tap Rider, 48, or 12 in the toolbar. A matching mower area appears on the home map in that mower's color, made from the lawn's own outline. Tap a different mower later to recolor it. If you reshape the lawn, its mower area follows. Copy lawn areas to mower areas in Manager settings does the same in one go for every lawn that already has a mower chosen.

Turning mower areas into lawns the crew can mark

Mower areas are colored guides; the crew marks work on lawn areas. Once the mower areas look right, use Copy mower areas to lawn areas in Manager settings (with Lawn selected). Each mower area becomes a lawn area in its zone, drawn with the green dotted outline like every other lawn area, and fills in with the date and initials when a crew member taps it. Its orange done-shape lands exactly on the colored mower area on the home map. Areas already copied are skipped, so you can run it again after drawing new mower areas. In the mower editor, Copy to lawn does the same for just the selected area. If you later reshape a mower area, adjust its lawn area too (or delete the lawn area and copy again).

Copy lawn areas to leaf areas

Lawns usually need both mowing and leaf pickup. Draw them once as lawn areas, then use this button in Manager settings to make matching leaf areas.

Live map setupGeoreferencing and tile sources

Georeferencing the home map (manager)

Georeferencing tells the app where the home map sits in the real world, so every tree, area, zone, and mower area can also be placed by latitude and longitude. Nothing changes for the crew; it prepares the live map layer for sites that want one. Home map > Manager settings > Georeference the home map. Tap a spot on the map you can also find on Google Maps, such as a building corner or a crosswalk. In Google Maps, right-click that same spot (press and hold on a phone), tap the coordinates shown at the top of the menu to copy them, and paste them into the box. Two points are enough for a first fit; three or four spread out across the map are better, and each point then shows how far off it is in meters. Tap a point to edit its coordinates or remove it; with a point selected, tapping elsewhere moves it. The status line under the button reports the number of points, the average error, and the map's center. The points are shared with every phone and are included in Export.

Setting up the live map (manager)

Two steps. First georeference the home map (the section above). Then Manager settings > Live map: pick a tile source and Save. Esri World Imagery and USGS Imagery need no account and cost nothing; Esri is usually sharper, USGS is public domain but coarser in most places. Google Map Tiles uses a site's own Google Maps Platform key: paste the key in the key field (with the Map Tiles API enabled on its project and the key restricted to the site's web address), and the app starts and renews Google's two-week session token itself; tiles are billed to that Google account, and, per Google's terms, are not saved for offline use. The key can also be saved while the site source stays Esri or USGS: then Settings shows Prefer Google imagery on this phone, so the manager's phone gets Google's zoom-22 imagery for tracing while the crew's phones stay on the free source and generate no Google usage. On a live zone page in Edit this zone, the Sharper imagery button in the bar toggles the same switch. Custom takes any other tile address that uses {z}, {x}, and {y}, so a site that already pays for Mapbox, or has a state imagery service such as Utah's UGRC, can paste that address (with its key) and a credit line. Closest zoom tells the app how far the tiles can zoom before they are stretched; 19 suits Esri, 16 USGS. Turn on for every phone by default makes new phones start on the live map; each phone can still switch back in Settings. Save map tiles for offline downloads every tile covering the home map onto the phone you are holding, so the live map works with no signal; do it once on Wi-Fi on each crew phone that needs it. The status line tells you what is missing. The map's credit line is shown in the corner as the tile provider requires.

People, progress, and surveysAssignments, the crew overview, the manager dashboard, survey campaigns

Who is assigned to what

A small colored circle with someone's initials on the edge of a tree or area means that person is responsible for it. The manager sets this in Manager settings > Assignments, one choice per kind of work: trees, bush beds, lawn areas, leaf areas, snow areas, and each mower (Rider, 48, 12). A lawn with a mower chosen follows that mower's person. Each crew member has their own circle color, set next to their name in the Crew members list. Assignments show on the zone maps and on the mower areas on the home map, and are shared with every phone.

To give one particular tree, bed, lawn, leaf, snow, trash, or mower area to specific people (one or several), select it in Edit this zone (or in Edit mower areas) and tap Assign. Tick the names and Save. Their circles line up along the edge of that area, next to the circle of whoever covers that kind of area in general. Untick everyone to go back to the general assignment.

Seeing everyone's work (manager)

With Manager settings unlocked, the Instructions panel adds a Crew overview: for each crew member, what they cover in general, each zone where they have work with to-do and done counts, and their mower areas, followed by anything not assigned to anyone. Tap a person's card to show only their work on the map (tap again to show everything); Go opens that zone.

Dashboard (manager version)

The same panel with names, for one-on-ones: Waiting longest shows who last marked each item and when, each problem shows who reported it, and a Not assigned tile counts trees, areas, and mower areas nobody is responsible for. Open it from Settings > Manager settings > Dashboard or from the Crew overview in Instructions; it asks for the manager PIN if the phone is locked.

Surveys (manager)

Manager settings > Surveys is where you write campaigns and read the answers. A campaign has a heading, a star question, a written question (either can be left off), who it is for (everyone or chosen people), when it appears (when you send it, on a date, or after a person has marked a certain number of things done), and whether it repeats. New campaigns start as drafts; Send makes them live, Pause holds them, Close ends them. A site-wide setting keeps anyone from being asked more often than every few days, whatever the campaigns say. Tap a campaign for its results: average stars, how many were asked, answered, and skipped; a bar for each star; the average by week for repeating campaigns; topic chips found in the written answers (tap one to filter); and the answers themselves. Export CSV saves a spreadsheet; Copy for AI puts the question and all the answers on the clipboard with a short prompt, ready to paste into Claude to group them into themes.

About and copyrightWho made Groundskeeping and how it may be used

Copyright notice

Groundskeeping is an original work of authorship. The source code, user interface design, map and zone model, task and marking system, and all associated documentation are protected by copyright. No part of this software may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except as permitted by applicable copyright law.

Satellite imagery is provided by the tile source the site's manager has chosen (Esri, USGS, Google, or another provider) and remains the property of that provider, whose credit line appears on the live map. Map rendering uses MapLibre GL JS, an open-source library used under its own license (see vendor/maplibre-gl-LICENSE.txt).

For licensing inquiries, contact Robert Spencer at remspencer.design.

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